I Know How A Butterfly Feels. Ann Palmer
are covered with snow, more than when I drove my motor home by a few weeks ago. That is the Montana setting where I find myself as I begin sharing my adventure.
Martha, a long time friend, invited me to spend the summer with my motor home parked in her wide-open yard of seventy acres. Ever since they built their house in Montana, she has invited me to visit in the summer. Since her husband died a couple of years ago, I thought my staying for the summer would not only give me the kind of atmosphere I needed for writing but also give her a female companion.
Recently I talked to my niece, who is staying on an Indian Reservation further North, where she hopes to find a teaching job on the reservation. She told me that part of Montana is even prettier. For a number of years she studied Native American culture and spirituality, especially after discovering she had Native American ancestry on three sides. I can’t imagine “roughing” it as she is doing, living in a tent, but then, she raised three boys so tent camping is familiar to her. She described Flathead Lake and the area as exceptionally beautiful. Montana lives up to the reputation of being very beautiful.
Since I am inviting you to share my adventures, I should tell you a bit about whom I am in as few words as possible when one has lived as long as I have. To begin with, I was born in Texas into a modest typical dysfunctional family. We didn’t know we were dysfunctional as that word and other psychology words were not around in those days. If we had known, almost every family would have qualified. No offense to those who may be of the Baptist denomination but my first memories of religious/spiritual defiance was against the Baptist church. With millions of churches around the world, as a very young child, I recall observing the Baptist church on one hill and on another of the same height was the Methodist. How could any church assume they were the ONLY one chosen by God or any denomination, for that matter? There are plenty of those “the only one” churches, temples, mosques, etc. around the world! What horrible wars and chaos have been created because of that attitude! At around five, I didn’t like the fact they separated the boys and girls in Sunday school and when I felt pressured to be baptized or go to hell, I really did not like the preacher asking God to “forgive her of her sins” as his big hand ducked me under the water. How many sins could an eight-year-old girl have? That was the foundation for my lifetime of spiritual searching.
My dad often talked about how he would like to buy a travel trailer and take our family of five all over the USA. He could never afford it but the “bug” was planted in my gypsy soul. Unintentionally, my parents moved just about every three years; as an adult, without realizing it I continued the same pattern. It never dawned on me that I DID move every three years or less until someone asked why I moved so often. I didn’t have an answer – just circumstances. Most of my friends never move. For me, what boredom it would be to stay in one place all your life! I want to know what’s around the corner or over the next hill. In youth, I dreamed of being a reporter in the midst of all sorts of excitement, jumping on a tramp steamer and the more impossible one would be a glamorous fashion model. Life has always been an exciting adventure regardless of the turmoil, failures, heartaches and setbacks. As I grew into teen years, even though I was always one of the more attractive girls in school, I had little self-confidence. Even though I was generally popular, I seemed to always be saved for “the next election” until school days ended and I had not attained any of the popularity contests, which I interpreted as failures. It stuffed my self-confidence down even further.
My great tragedy was teen-age pregnancy and forced marriage and motherhood while friends continued in college. Motherhood was not one of my teenage dreams and I was not ready to be wife and mother. I felt cheated out of my most exciting years. When I walked down the aisle on my father’s arm for my formal wedding, with a church full of guests and the bridal party at the alter, I looked at my groom and thought I DON’T LOVE HIM! How I wished he could have been my teen-age Prince Charming I fell in love with only a few years back! I had no choice – I was trapped! How fitting it was that my ex-roommate sang, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” There was a part of me, although subconscious, that must have hated my husband-to-be. My gypsy soul was unrecognized at that time. It should have been the happiest day of my life, as it is the time when every young woman can feel like a princess. For me, it was going through an unavoidable necessary solution. Simple as it was, the wedding dress and all that went with it had to be a joy. As I look at those weddings photos today, it amazes me that that tiny waistline and flat stomach could have housed a two-month fetus.
Like most girls in that era, I knew absolutely nothing about sex. I had never heard of “oral” sex and if I had, it would be unthinkable! I had dated a lot – I had “necked” – that meant kissing and hugging and controlling a guy’s hands to stay off private property! During my pregnancy, I avoided sex with every excuse in the book. My husband was a good guy but I was not in love with him and felt no chemistry for him. During our marriage, I never looked at his nude body. Once, while he stood at the sink in the bathroom I saw him nude from behind. It sounds ridiculous today, but true. I would do anything to avoid sex – stay up after he went to bed watching TV or reading, use any excuse, etc. He also knew nothing about love making. As a typical uninformed male, sex was just the on and off kind to satisfy his needs. I didn’t know the word “orgasm” nor did I ever experience one. “Love making” does not come naturally. With sex as a vital part of most people’s lives, it seems more compulsory education is needed. Perhaps if there was more education and understanding of this very human need, there would be less rape and violence connected with the act of sex. (Fortunately, my second husband was an excellent teacher.)
In later years, when discussing my first husband who was a Gemini, the twin sign, I would say, “he never got around to having ONE personality, much less two!” That always brought a laugh. We worked together selling children’s wear in the wholesale market. We traveled together while my aunt kept our daughter. I welcomed the travel as I had hardly been out of the state of Texas. That was more or less my first introduction to the excitement of travel.
Manufacturers that we represented would bring us to Pennsylvania and New York City – what excitement THAT was for me! I also welcomed the times when he traveled alone and I could stay home. I had finagled a deal to buy a house in a good neighborhood of Dallas for practically nothing down. I loved my home and raising my daughter whom I adored. She had her own room plus we had a den in our three-bedroom home that was my first attempt at decorating. The modern brick house was darling. It was a far cry from the dinky old apartment we had when she was born. For my age, in some ways, we seemed to have it all. Both our parents adored our daughter. His parents were children’s wear representatives. That was how we got into the same business. His mother selected clothes for her. We didn’t agree on clothing at all. I loved frilly feminine clothes. She liked tailored clothes and was generous with her gifts to our daughter.
By the time my daughter was about two, a friend who was a model, insisted on teaching me the correct steps for fashion modeling. She insisted I try out for a very big yearly event at Neiman-Marcus in Dallas. Much to my surprise, I won that opportunity and that was the beginning of my fashion modeling career. Before long I was doing local television commercials, catalogue and photography fashion work in general. I felt good about myself coming from a financially lower middle class family, as a model I was meeting the cream of society. I seemed to fit better in society than in my own family background. I was a bit of an inborn snob without any background qualifications.
Before divorce time came, I had so much apprehension over the prospects. In my mind, a divorced woman was a fallen woman. I talked to my minister who was minister over one of the largest churches in Dallas. I also discussed it with my doctor. Much to my surprise both encouraged me to get a divorce. Since I had seen the results of weekend fathers spoiling the child and the mother having to be the bad parent who disciplines the child, I felt I should pursue a modeling career in New York or Los Angeles. I preferred to send her back to her father for quality time in the summers and holidays. With a three-year-old daughter, California seemed a more healthy choice for raising a female child. Our house was sold. My daughter would stay with my aunt until I got settled and off I went to pursue a new life in California. Of course, I was terrified to drive that far alone. My brother made me change a tire so I would know how in case I got stuck on the road.
Dread is always worse than the doing. Once on the road fears disappear. I always wonder why